'US raids kill 5 British fanatics'

Five British fundamentalists are said to have been killed during US raids on Afghanistan, according to a Muslim fundamentalist organisation.

The respected London-based Arabic political newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported that the five men had travelled from London to Jalalabad to join one of Osama bin Laden's training camps around four weeks ago.

One of the men is named as Mohammed Omar, who was in his late 30s.

Asharq Al-Awsat's front page was based on information supplied by a Pakistanbased spokesman for the fundamentalist organisation Al-Muhajiroun.

The spokesman, Abdel Rahman Salim, told the newspaper's correspondent in Lahore that he had received confirmation of Omar's death in US air raids on al Qaeda's bases in Jalalabad.

He said the fate of the other Britons, who were not named, was unknown but they were officially listed as "missing presumed dead". It is not known whereabouts in London Omar lived.

A spokesman for Asharq Al-Awsat, which has its offices in High Holborn and sells 155,000 copies daily, today said the article was based on "reliable sources".

Al-Muhajiroun is an international extremist group which has publicly stated that the attack on the World Trade Center was "the work of Allah in revenge for US attacks on Muslims".

It was founded by Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed, who operates from a base in Tottenham. Bakri has boasted of sending up to 2,000 Britons a year abroad to fight for Islam.

He has openly stated that he wants to overthrow Western society and create a worldwide Islamic state. Recently he described Tony Blair as a legitimate target for assassination.